> On Aug 27, 2016, at 7:30 AM, [email protected] wrote: > > Clark, > > I don’t think this approach clarifies the matter, because it seems to > overlook a couple of Peirce’s specifications. First, in reference to the sign > “It is a stormy day,” he says that “Its Immediate Object is the notion of the > present weather so far as this is common to her mind and mine,—not the > character of it, but the identity of it.” (So it would not determine the > choice of the word “stormy,” which signifies the character of the day, but > rather the other words.) Also, the immediate object of the proposition has to > work with “collateral experience” or “observation” to identify the Object. But > > [[ I do not mean by “collateral observation” acquaintance with the system of > signs. What is so gathered is not COLLATERAL. It is on the contrary the > prerequisite for getting any idea signified by the sign. ] EP2:494, CP 8.179 ] > Your analysis seems to make the “code” (the “system of signs”) one of your > two immediate objects, rather than a prerequisite for signification (as > opposed to denotation) as Peirce has it. >
That’s a good criticism. I’ll have to think about it a bit, but my immediate intuition would be that Peirce is just neglecting what Eco calls the code aspects for this analysis. That is it’s a prerequisite for signification but the question then becomes as a sign how does that function. If we exclude how the sign is able to transform and communication this notion of present weather then something is missing logically. By putting it as a prerequisite Peirce seems to recognize this. What then are the codes, “collateral experience” and “observation” relative to the sign? I put it as other immediate objects that simply aren’t part of our analysis in question. However if we reject that way of speaking what are they? Clearly they are parts of signification and a key part for understanding what is going on. An other way to take it is of course to not treat them as immediate objects but as part of the sign. In this case they are tokens that allow the sign-process to proceed. My gut instinct is that while we could use either formulation all that is different is how we are analyzing the sign process. There is something continuous about what is going on. For most signs we can subdivide that sign down into components. So if we put say the words and their meaning in the sign, when we analyze the sign those will at some stage of the analysis be immediate objects. If we put them as immediate objects but then shift our analysis to the dynamic object (the weather as it is) then they shift from being immediate objects into being part of the sign. All of which makes me think that the role they play depends completely on the somewhat arbitrary choice we make for our analysis. They can function as immediate object or sign and all that matters is where we draw those boundaries. None of this changes their essential function though.
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